Leave No One Behind

The Leave No One Behind project was launched in late 2017 as a partnership of 12 international civil society organisations and local partner organisations from Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Nepal and Vietnam.

Its main goal is to give voice and agency to marginalised groups who are at risk to be overlooked in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The SDGs were created in the spirit of “leaving no one behind”, meaning all goals need to be reached for everyone. However, data that sufficiently captures the needs of vulnerable groups is scarcely found in the official statistics. This lack of knowledge usually implies that no proper solutions can be offered to improve the livelihoods of these people.

The Leave No One Behind project puts marginalised groups in the forefront of project design: data is generated directly at the local level with the support of the targeted communities themselves. We call this “community-driven data”. The project partners in the action countries have entered into a dialogue with governments, aiming for the official recognition of this data to make it a source of public planning. Marginalised communities will be empowered to take part in the dialogue, enabling them to address their needs and challenges eye-to-eye with authorities.

The project has a unique setup, being a partnership that stretches from the local up to the global level. It brings together a diverse group of actors including international civil society organisations, local CSOs, official authorities and citizens with the common goal to make sure all voices are heard and count.

Currently, the project is finishing its pilot phase. Its overarching goal is to ‘mainstream’ this inclusive dialogue model and make it a standard of SDG implementation in a growing number of countries worldwide.

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